Crucible IX 24/01/2014

As you may have noticed, I have changed the name of the game from 'Ascension' to 'Crucible'. I felt that Crucible reflected the dark mood of the game much better than Ascension, and wanted to prevent the game from being too closely associated to the somewhat legendary game 'Ascendancy'. To celebrate this I am happy to show off a particular piece of work done my artist/friend:

I have commissioned him to design me some promotional material, and also this impressive looking font. Meanwhile...

State of the game (Build 0.54)

• Mostly moved and optimised existing code so not a great deal of new content.
• Map randomiser working much better than before! This caused me a great headache and still isn't working completely, but produces far more interesting maps than last week.

Notice that connections no longer overlap others with the new randomiser.

• UI improvements. When you hover over a system, the GUI will display key information about it. Still functional graphics, but much closer to how the final version will look. Also created some icons for Science,Industry and Money. Also created a small bar on the bottom of the screen to count resources, turn number etc. I felt that having the bar at the bottom of the screen helped make the rest of the game seem less cluttered (as opposed to having a bar at the top, and UI elements around every edge).

New empire info bar (shortened for the blog), also displays date rather than turn. 

System label. Also shows off fancy symbols. Not sure about symbol for money (Credits).

• Change to heroes. Now only 2 specialisations, rather than previous 3, on second level. Merchant becomes Smuggler- can ferry resources and debuffs around. President and Peacemaker combined into Ambassador. Strike Teams now gone. Spy and Recon Drone now condensed into Hacker. Assassin has been renamed as Drone. Heroes now gain levels simply by surviving for a certain number of turns, rather than a GP cost. This prevents excessively powerful heroes being purchased early in the game.
• New racial traits. Lots of theory work on ships, invasion mechanics, heroes and technology ideas. Will detail when implemented.

I will also be dedicating time to creating a business plan, as I hope to get onto Kickstarter in the not too distant future. Hope you enjoyed reading/looking, feel free to comment!

Crucible VIII 17/01/2014

State of the game (Build 0.5 {conveniently 0.1 more than the last!}):

• Ownership mechanic implemented. Ownership increases over time. All planets have Ownership quoted as a percentage. The current percentage of your ownership directly affects the SIM output of the planet. Rate of Ownership gain can be altered. Having 0% Ownership will cause you to lose the planet. Ownership does not degrade over time.
• New human-specific mechanic: "Ambition". Ambition increases when the player colonises new systems or planets. Having high ambition will lead to increased Ownership of all planets. Low ambition reduces Ownership of all planets. Ambition will only increase via methods of expansion, but there are also a number of human-specific system improvements that can reduce, stop, and/or change the effects caused by Ambition. Ambition decreases slowly if no expansion occurs.
• Re-do of existing system improvements. There are now fewer improvements, but they scale better with cost and are easily more interesting (24 down to 12 generic improvements, with 9 race-specific improvements each).
• Map randomiser. This is not completely working, as I do not like the current set-up in which it chooses planets. It does, however, generate a random map based on predetermined star system locations (as described in the video). I currently only have 60 systems available in a pool, but I will be making 180, so it will be possible to have maps of varying sizes.

Screenshots demonstrating randomiser in action. Not all that random with fixed stars!

• Diplomacy implemented. Players can exist in one of 3 states with each other player: Peace, Cold War, and War. Although the bonuses are continuous, rather than discrete, War provides a bonus to Offensive and Defensive stats, and prevents trade routes from being set up, it is also harder to detect Infiltrator heroes. Cold War boosts both Offensive and Defensive stats as well as SIM output of systems. Trade routes can still be set up, Infiltrators are much easier to detect, and invasions can still take place. Peace boosts SIM output of systems, trade routes can be created, Infiltrators are hard to detect once more, and invasions cannot occur.
• More hero abilities. Merchants are now linked with systems rather than other Merchants. Infiltrators now have stealth ability. Soldiers can invade and take over systems. Ships coming soon...
• UI change. Even though these graphics are not permanent, they better represent the dark mood I am trying to set with the game. They are also far, far more interesting for me to stare at!

Screenshot showing off the new UI and atmosphere of the game. Very dark...

• General changes. Rewrote majority of AI to improve expansion.

Hope this interests you. If you watched my video I apologise for the low sound. I do discuss a fair amount of interesting stuff such as the future of Crucible, and I try to better explain a lot of the mechanics in the game. It would mean a great deal to me if you found the time to have a watch, but if not- no worries! I plan on doing some more play-along's in the future if people like them (and I will use a different mic :) ).

Crucible Video Blog

A mini post with big content! Here is a short (actually pretty long) video/play through I have done to explain and demonstrate the mechanics of the game. I also discuss features I haven't mentioned before, and ideas I have for the far future.

Thanks for watching!

Crucible VII 10/01/2014

State of the Game (Build 0.4):

• Vaguely playable- no win conditions, but I guess it's fun to rack up a high score (and also exploit the hideously unbalanced heroes).
• Implemented diplomacy mechanic to some degree. Soldiers encourage War, Diplomats encourage Peace, whilst Infiltrators encourage Stalemate/Cold War. Mechanics of how diplomatic states are attained is proving complicated. I would like it so that War/Peace is achieved passively (I.E the user does not declare War etc.), but my algorithms and graphs aren't doing what I thought they would.
• Lots of changes to heroes- Implemented hero specialisation tree as mentioned in previous post. Heroes can now be moved around to different systems, at the moment they can move only to systems owned by the player. In future they will be able to move to any system, and there will be a distance cap per turn for heroes (this can be improved by researching engine technology). Merchants work nicely, but it took ages to make them send and receive SIM from other systems. I am thinking that Merchants should simply be paired with any hero (rather than other Merchants) but I am unsure. Presidents provide adjacency bonuses to other systems (this DOES stack and is intended to stack- meaning you can have huge bonuses to SIM production). Yes, heroes are supposed to be extremely powerful.

 Screenshot showing the hero levelling up screen. Shows off various specialisations.

Shows off the ability to select which planet to colonise first in a system.

 

Better view of merchant connection line (whilst hero is moving) that was seen in previous screenshot.

• Minor improvements to UI and to how SIM is earned throughout the game. Major change to how system information is stored has resulted in a fair amount of the UI not actually working (for example, improvements built on systems no longer show up). Performance constantly varying as I improve old code and write new code. Runs well on my computer (not too encouraging for laptop users!).

I should be updating this blog every Friday from now on. I also have a LOT more time to work on this thanks to my hours at work being changed. As always, feel free to comment!

Crucible VI 5/1/2014

Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all had a great time, and with some hard work I plan to get Crucible finished this year. Today's post though...

State of the Game (build 0.31):

• Lots of optimisation and consolidation of useless or repeated variables going on (i.e making my code not look like an arse). Unity has a wonderful bug where if you write too many OnGUI() methods it will kill the CPU. I plan on purchasing NGUI in the future (allowing it to make only one draw call, as opposed to up to 1000).
• Majority of basic maths works- the few technologies I have implemented work well, though horribly balanced (Nereides are enormously overpowered).
• AI works to an extent- it will assess the systems it owns, and then either improve planets or colonise new systems based on their potential earnings. AI can also make 'mistakes' which prevents it from steamrolling the player.
• Planets and systems can be improved, but I am unhappy with the current way in which planetary improvements work- I am planning an 'Ownership' mechanic, in which the % Ownership of a planet increases over time. The % Ownership dictates how much SIM (of the total potential SIM output) is produced. Planetary improvement then increases the maximum % Ownership. This would also allow races to coexist on a single planet (exciting!).
• Heroes are proving troublesome as they have a fairly unique behavior compared to the rest of the game. I have the Merchant hero type working, and have made changes to the way in which heroes are recruited (see diagram below). Generic heroes are now recruited, then Galaxy Points are spent to specialise the heroes abilities and give it access to unique ship types. Lots of work required to make this feature easy to use and flexible, but without introducing annoying micro management (I'm looking at you, ship design in Endless Space!).

Tiers of hero improvement- basic in white, 1st specialisation in green, final specialisation in orange.

• Unsurprisingly the graphics are not that great at the moment. I've been doing a bit of concept art to get the kind of feel that I want (at some point I will try and find a professional to do some real art), and it's very stylish- not something I've seen before in a game like this. Below is a simple gas giant idea that I knocked up in paint.net to see how my design looked in colour.

I'm not looking to do flat shading in the actual game, I just don't have the time to make textures and program/design the game.

And that's it for today. Feel free to comment below, and I hope you enjoyed reading again!

Crucible V 29/12/2013

Christmas is past, so lets talk about Diplomacy in Crucible (or the art of not shooting everything). Diplomatic states (peace, war and cold war) each allow for different activites to occur. 

The default state between players is Cold War. With each turn that passes there is a greater and greater chance that either peace or war will occur between players. In practice this means that on turn 0 there may be a 1% chance that either peace or war will break out between players, but that on turn 5 there will be a 5% chance, and on turn 10, a 20% chance. The purpose of this feedback system is to allow for Cold War states between players to exist for reasonably long periods of time, and to impose different diplomatic states if cold war goes on for too long (in real life either tensions would escalate until war breaks out, or the situation would diffuse into peace).

While the previous mechanic is mostly independant of player activity, the diplomatic state that Cold War resolves into is not. Performing passive actions such as trading, peacemaking or simply doing nothing will make Cold War more likely to resolve into peace, and will also increase the chance that Cold War will resolve. Performing aggressive actions such as assassinating heroes, stealing resources, or taking sides with other players cause Cold War to resolve into War. In practice this means that (at turn 10) Cold War will have a base chance of 20% to resolve into another state, but if the player had performed lots of passive actions, there would be a 50% chance to resolve to peace- resulting in a 70% chance total that peace will occur. Note: This may sound slightly confusing- I haven't ironed out exactly how this will work, but hopefully this will give you the gist of it.

It will be possible for the player to directly initiate War or Peace states, but this feedback system will help to reflect the players impact on the universe, and hopefully make it seem as if AI players have an opinion of you.

The various abilities possessed by heroes will also have advantages in different diplomatic states...

- Adjacency bonuses from Presidents are only active for other players systems when at peace.

- Peacemaking can only occur during War and Cold War.

- Assassinations, resource Siphoning and Tech stealing can occur in every state.

- Invasions can only occur during War (or cause War to break out instantly).

Although this is a rather brief explanation of diplomacy, I hope it whets you appetite a bit. I am on holiday at the moment, but will be able to work on the game full time when I get back, and hope to be able to deliver a 'playable' demo by spring time.

Crucible IV 19/12/2013

Heroes play a unique part in Crucible. They are the only mobile aspect of the game, and are the primary way in which the player will interact with the universe (system and planet management is largely a passive activity). Heroes are found stationed within systems, but can also move freely to other systems, including enemy and uncolonised systems.

Heroes can be hired for a cost, and the available pool of heroes will be randomised (but never empty), so in theory a player could have thousands of heroes (but you wouldn't want to!). There are several different kinds of hero, and each type has mechanics that interact differently with the game world.

There are three different categories of hero, and each category reflects the three different diplomatic states of the game. There are Diplomats whose abilities favour peacetime activities, Infiltrators designed for use in Cold War scenarios, and Soldiers- just perfect for war.

Within the each category there falls (currently) three different hero sub-types, which are as follows:

Diplomat

• President- Presidents boost the SIM production of the system they are placed in, as well as adjacent systems.
• Peacemaker- When positioned in hostile systems, peacemakers will convert the system to a peaceful system over a period of turns. When placed in friendly systems peacemakers will prevent the system from becoming hostile.
• Merchant- Merchants come in pairs. Two players must each own a merchant and have them positioned in a system. The merchants can then be linked, and will provide two—way SIM bonuses to each player. Merchant connections can b changed, but will negatively affect the diplomatic state of the original player if linked to a different player.

Infiltrator (invisible to enemy)

• Recon Drone- When positioned in enemy systems, recon drones can allow the player to view all system and planetary improvements, as well as any heroes present within the system. These can be useful to look through systems when considering targets for an invasion.
• Spy- A spy will siphon off a small amount of an enemy systems SIM to the player. Enemies are able to see reduced SIM in the system inspector, but remain uninformed of the cause.
• Assassin- Assassins can kill enemy heroes. This action takes a number if turns, and if the hero is detected before the assassination can be carried out, they will escape to the nearest friendly system.

Soldier

• Warlord- Warlords have considerable offensive power and are the go-to hero for system invasions. Warlords can also raze systems to prevent further use by players.
• Strike Team- Strike teams support Vanguards and Warlords in that they are equally suited to offensive and defensive situations. This is ideal for front line skirmishes.
• Vanguard- Vanguards are used to defend players systems from enemy invasions. They are also able to raze systems.

I hope to introduce more unique mechanics to each hero type, but the basic flavour is outlined here. I am currently also considering the possibility of having each hero come with a ship. This would allow heroes and ships to be upgraded (much less micromanagement than it sounds), for example ships could be upgraded to move further (they can only move one system at a time currently), and heroes could have various pieces of technology added to them.

As I say this needs a great deal of thought given to it as I am averse to adding extra features for the sake of complexity.